USA > Ohio > Sketches and statistics of Cincinnati in 1859 > Part 11
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In the fall of the ensuing year-1791-there was another draft made by the United States, on Kentucky, for militia, for the pur- pose of enforcing the strength of an expedition of regulars and Pennsylvania militia, under the command of General St. Clair, to chastise the hostile Indians. At this period I was working at the hatter trade-my regular business-near Ruddle's Mills, not far from Paris, and escaped the draft. The number originally drawn fell short of what had been assigned to the State, and seven less than the quota of Bourbon county, and in a second draft made to complete the deficiency, I was one of the number drawn.
The second draft rendezvoused at Craig's Mills, at the edge of Georgetown, Ky., where we waited two or three days until our en- tire force, of about seventy men, had collected on the spot. Capt. Ellis took command of the detachment, and marched us off to Cincinnati. I was directed to act as Sergeant, having had some experience, compared with the rest, in Indian warfare.
We marched by way of Fort Hamilton, which St. Clair had but recently constructed. We encamped in the woods, and found game abundant, such as bear, deer, and turkeys. We followed hard after St. Clair, until we reached Fort Jefferson, where we found the army employed in building it. Here we staid a week or more. Two of the six monthsmen, who were from Pennsylva- nia, went out hunting, and on their way back were fired on by In- dians. One was killed on the spot, the other survived to get into camp, where he died. A party set out to hunt the other, and after a tedious search, found him lying in the woods, not merely scalped, but the entire skin of the head, down to the ears and the temples, and back as far as any hair could be found, was stripped off. I also saw three men hung here, one an Irishman, named Johnson, for shooting his Captain, and the others, Targec, a Frenchman, and Simpson, a Virginian. The last two had been caught deserting to the Indians. They were all hung on the Sunday evening after we reached Fort Jefferson. There had been another fellow engaged with the deserters, who turned states' evidence, and was left in irons at Fort Jefferson when the army left it. What became of him no one could tell, but he was never found after the army returned from the battle-field of the 4th of November.
As soon as the fort was completed, we left a garrison of five- and-twenty men, and pushed on into the wilderness. We marched ten miles that day, and encamped. A party of two hundred
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Pennsylvanians were detailed to cut a road a distance of twenty miles, and a party of Kentuckians, of equal force, was dispatched along to guard the first party. The road was completed on the second day, the whole detachment being on half rations the whole time. On the third day, pack-horses with flour, and more than a hundred head of beef cattle, reached camp, but very little to our benefit, for next morning the battle took place, and all these sup- plies finally became plunder to the savages. On the morning of the 3d November, a party of fifty or sixty Kentucky militia started off for home, determined no longer to endure the hardships of the campaign ou scanty food. St. Clair sent a part of his first regi- ment of regulars, who not only failed to overtake the Kentuckians, but were not able to return in time for the battle. During the whole night of the 3d, the Indians and the sentinels kept up a scattering firing, and just as day broke, Capt. Lemon, officer of the guard, and Licut. Briggs, his second in command, went out to see what had led to the firing. They had hardly got out of sight of the sentinels, when they were fired on. Lemon was killed on the spot, but Briggs, although mortally wounded, contrived to get into camp. The Indians rushed into our lines, the guard having broke on their approach. The camp of the militia was on the west side of a creek, of which the regulars occupied the other side, and on higher ground. The militia made but a feeble resistance, and Colonel Oldham, who attempted to rally them, was killed in the effort. The militia broke and fled across the creek to a camp of the regulars, and through their line, before they could be stopped. General Butler formed his troops as promptly as possible, Captain Ford being in charge of two or three pieces of artillery. The Indians treed on the banks of the creek, under cover of the hill, and of heavy timber between, and picked off the regulars exposed to their rifles, without any op- portunity of these sceing their enemies. Great slaughter in our lines was the necessary consequence. The artillery was left with- out men to serve it, and the regulars were nearly all cut off. The Indians then rushed up and took the cannon. General Butler ral- lied about two hundred and fifty regulars and militia, and ordered a charge with bayonets and rifles. The Indians then fled, but re- turned as soon as they had re-loaded, and drove us off from the cannon, which they then threw off the carriages. The Indians, by this time, had entirely surrounded the camp. Maj. Clark ordered a retreat, crying, "Fill up the ranks! fill up the ranks!" until it
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was found we had no men to fill the ranks. A general flight ensued, the savages following us five or six miles. I was in the head of the flying column, and saw nothing more of the Indians afterward, although their screaming and yelling might be heard for miles.
We reached Fort Jefferson, which we found abandoned by our troops, who had heard of our defeat, and fled to escape the pursuit, which they expected would follow up to the fort. St. Clair made his escape on an old pack-horse which could hardly be pricked out of a walk.
Major Ferguson, Captain Ford, and Colonel Gibson, were all killed in the beginning of the battle. General Butler was killed in the charge spoken of. Sixty-four commissioned officers were killed or badly wounded in this disastrous affair.
St. Clair and his officers fought gallantly, but the whole affair was miserably mismanaged in relying upon musketry and artillery against Indians. Another error was in clearing out the brush, through the camp-ground, affording the rifles of the Indians full aim and unobstructed range.
That night, myself and two others got lost in the woods, and kindled a fire to warm ourselves. We had hardly done this, when we heard a great crackling among the cry, frosty timber, and not knowing whether it was caused by friends or enemies, we took to our heels. We traveled all night through the swamps. I steered my course by the Seven Stars till daybreak, when I discovered men on the road who had been traveling all night also. On the even- ing of next day, we reached Fort Hamilton, and the next day Cin- cinnati, where we staid nearly a week to allow the stragglers to make their appearance. Here we were honorably discharged, and made our way home to Kentucky, at least so many of us as belonged there.
My next experience in Indian warfare, was in 1792. In June or July, of that year, General Charles Scott, of Kentucky, made a call upon his fellow-citizens for volunteers, to engage in an expe- dition, of mounted men, against the hostile Indians, on Eel river, who had been recently breaking up the frontier settlements, by stealing horses and murdering the inhabitants, as opportunity served. The troops rendezvoused at the mouth of the Kentucky river, at which point flats were prepared to take the volunteers, with their horses, across the Ohio. Nearly one thousand men
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assembled for the purpose. We were formed into companies of from fifty to ninety men, as neighbors' districts rendered it con- venient; Scott being in command of the whole. Major Hall, with whom I had been serving in St. Clair's expedition, was again in charge of one of the battalions; and I was again under his orders. James Wilson was Captain of our company. Each man took pro- visions for thirty days, composed of parched corn, maple sugar, bacon, and flour, adding probably fifty or sixty pounds to the bur- den of each horse. The men were all armed with a rifle and batcher-knife, and a number had tomahawks. We crossed the Ohio, and proceeded to White river without accident or adventure. The river had been known to be so full as to swim the horses, and General Scott detached a party of fifteen or twenty ahead to pre- pare bark canoes of hickory, in which to cross the riders, with the baggage, while the horses swam over by being held by the bridles. Some of the volunteers swam their horses while on their backs. Two of the horses and one of the riders were drowned in the pas- sage, which cost us a whole day.
We reached the Indian towns, and were discovered in our ap- proach by some of the Indians, on foot, who ran in to give the alarm, but being mounted we got in as soon as they did. Most of the warriors fled, crossing Eel river, toward another Indian village in sight of the first. They fired on us from the tops of their cabins, but at too great a distance to do us injury. The fire was returned. by us, with larger and more effective rifles, which soon dislodged them, driving them into the woods. We made more than twenty prisoners, old men, women, and children, who we brought in to Cincinnati, and left with the garrison there. I saw them prisoners still there, in 1793, when Wayne had reached Cincinnati. We burnt the cabins and wigwams in their villages, and destroyed the corn, which, at this period, had begun to tassel out. The cabins were made of small logs, and had been built by the squaws. The wigwams had been built by driving two or more stakes, with crotches at the upper end, according to the desired length of the wigwam. Across these stakes were laid poles and bark, which was suspended by the middle on the pole to hang down on each side to the ground. Some of this bark was four feet wide. The bark is taken off in the spring, when the sap rises, with great ease; and at other seasons the Indians cut off the bark sufficiently to admit boiling water being poured above the course they desire to 10
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strip off. Then making an incision lengthwise, they begin peeling and again applying boiling water, again peel until the entire bark is taken off. The bark, when peeled, is laid open on the ground and pressed flat with stones, until it keeps its shape.
Our troops separated before we reached Cincinnati, those that lived in the southern and western parts of Kentucky, crossing at the mouth of that river, and those belonging to our neighborhood, making our way up Dry Ridge, on the present road from Coving- ton to Lexington, Ky.
In 1793, I was again called into service, as a mounted volunteer, at a dollar a day for self and horse, having to find our own arms and ammunition. I was attached to Maj. Notley Conn's battalion, which was raised in the vicinity of Paris, and my Captain was Nathan Rollins. The general rendezvous was Newport, Ky., which had just been laid out as a town. Here we met three bat- talions more, one under Major Russell, attached with ours to the regiment, commanded by Colonel Todd. The other regiment was under Colonel Barbee. General Scott was again in command of the Kentucky troops. We started about the 1st of October, and marched out to Greenville, where we found General Wayne, in an encampment of about ten acres. We encamped beyond, at the edge of a prairie.
From a variety of causes, the campaign had been so long de- layed, that General Wayne concluded to defer active operations against the enemy until next year. He therefore discharged Scott with his volunteers. In lieu of going home direct, Scott invited six hundred of those who were best equipped for service, to ac- company him in an expedition to scour the Indian country, and dismissed the residue. Being well mounted, and feeling myself capable of going through as much as any other man in the cam- paign, I volunteered to make one of the party. We started off from Greenville and rode on till we came to White river, and down that stream till we reached the Wabash. We had, unfortunately, no provision with us at leaving Greenville, and had to resort to hunt- ing for subsistence. Our firing at the game served to put the Indians on their guard, and they kept out of our way. We found several camps, but they had all been deserted by the savages. We discovered, afterward, that, instead of our pursuing Indians, they were following us; for every night they had endeavored, as we were told subsequently, to steal our horses. This they were
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unable to effect without giving an alarm, as we tied our horses up every night within the camp. In this way we scoured the whole country and finally returned without accomplishing anything.
While we were out, however, a party of these Indians had made an excursion on White's Station, on Mill creek, a few miles from Cincinnati. Here they killed several persons, but were finally driven off by the determination and spirit of Captain Jacob White, and others, who defended it.
We were mustered out of service at Cincinnati, and returned home without further loss of time.
In July, 1794, Gen. Charles Scott issued an address to the Ken- tucky volunteers, inviting an enrollment of two thousand mounted men, which he had pledged to General Wayne as the contribution of that State to the expedition assembling at Cincinnati, and in- tended to chastise the savages, whose success in the Harmar and St. Clair campaigns, had rendered them more than ever indisposed to treat for peace.
The whole Kentucky quota rendezvoused at Georgetown, and were inspected by Captain Edward Butler, a brother to General Richard Butler, who had been killed at St. Clair's defeat. We assembled again at Newport, the army of Wayne having, as already stated, encamped the previous year at . freenville, where it still lay. We marched on to this place, accordingly, and without any adven- ture. We found that Wayne had already left, and following on, we overtook the main body at St. Mary's. We went on thence to the Auglaize, where we found the relics of burning cabins, which the Indians, who were apprised of Wayne's approach, had abandoned and set fire to. We. kept on the forks of the Auglaize and Mau- mee, where the principal villages were. Here we found the cabins also destroyed by the Indians, who had made their escape by water in canoes.
At this point Wayne halted his forces and built Fort Defiance. He dispatched a flag of truce to the Indians, by a man named Mil- ler, who had been captured by the Indians while a boy, and was raised among them, although recently captured by a scouting party of Wayne's. The Indians returned word that they must assemble their chiefs, and would give him an answer in ten days. Wayne. however, had pushed on immediately after Miller's departure, and about half-way between Fort Defiance and the foot of the rapids, we met Miller returning. On being asked, "What news?" he
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replied, we might expect a hard fight, for the Indians were gather- ing in great force, several parties having come in during his short stay with them, and more were hourly expected. We advanced without opposition as far as Rocher au bois, a rocky place in the Maumee, covered with cedars, where Wayne halted and encamped, fortifying his camp with entrenchments of ditches, two feet deep, upon the earth thrown out of which, timber had been carried, and the loose brush from the inside thrown upon the outside. In the morning we moved on to the battle-ground of the 20th of August, known by the name of the Fallen Timbers. This was so called from the quantity of trees thrown down in a recent hurricane, and had therefore been selected by the Indians as a suitable place to make a stand against our army. The fallen timbers extended from the river, north and south, nearly a mile across our front, how much farther I cannot say, nor is it of importance. But for that whole distance the Indians were hid behind the trunks of the trees wherever they could find hiding-places. In the early part of the night before, a party of the Indians had approached the camp to reconnoitre, but being discovered by the out-posts, the Indians were fired on by the whole line of sentinels and driven off.
* I had an adventure of my own, connected with this, which I will now relate. When I left Georgetown, I had a conversation with John Hinkston, son of the man after whom one of the forks of Licking was named. Hinkston and I agreed that we would bring back a scalp or lose our own. On the night referred to, Hinkston was detailed for guard, and objected to go, alleging that it might be the means of his having no share in the battle which no doubt would take place in the morning, and which he was resolved to have a hand in. He proposed to me to take his place, offering me, if I would do so, all the money he had in his purse. I took his post accordingly. In the morning, Hinkston reminded me of the engagement we had made in Georgetown, and said we should soon be in circumstances to carry it out. We marched on some four or five miles, our front battalion formed the guard of the left wing, the army being spread out, almost a mile in breadth, under the appre- hension of being outflanked by the Indians.
A battalion of spies, under the command of Kibby and Baker, advanced in front, to bring on an engagement, if possible, as we expected, what proved to be the fact, that the Indians were hid behind the fallen trunks and limbs of trees. Our battalion had
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been pressed so far to the left that we had not much of the timber immediately in our front. A portion of the Indians being Wyan- dotts, who had attempted to outflank our troops, in the movement, found themselves in front of our battalion. As they approached us, they raised the yell, which, being a low guttural sound, was mistaken, by those of us who had never heard it, for the sound of little bells. "What's that?" said some of our boys. I replied, having heard it in Harmar's and St. Clair's engagements, "You'll soon find out."
The Indians then fired, and we returned the fire, rushing on them as they treed to re-load. I singled out one Indian, and, lev- eling my rifle, fired. I was behind a tree, as he was, and struck him before he had the same chance at me. He ran off, although wounded, and I saw him no more. I re-loaded, and, rushing on again, I discovered an Indian in a sink-hole, his body, from the hips up, being exposed to view. He had fired, and while he was loading his gun, I drew up against a hickory sapling, exclaiming, "Your life, or mine!" and blazed away. The roar of rifles was such that I did not hear my charge explode, but knew, from the blaze that the priming had taken effect. I saw the Indian fall, and rushing on, seized him by the hair to take his scalp, but finding that I had lost my hunting-knife, I snatched his from his belt. Ilis was a bran new scalping-knife, red handled, and the blade was as bright as when it came into his hands. He caught the knife by the blade, but I wrenched it from him, cutting off three of his fingers as he let it go. I then put my foot on him to pin him down, and took the scalp off. He gave but one quiver, and the breath left his body. I took his gun, a beautiful rifle, and broke the stock of it across a log. I then took up my own rifle, and re-loaded as quickly as possible.
The battle was continued, for a short time, with considerable spirit on our right, where the main body, on both sides, were. In the meantime, our men at the left were driving the Wyandotts, who - kept up a retreating fire. Presently the whole line of the Indians broke, and they fled at full speed. Our troops pursued them a full mile up to the British fort, called Maumee, on the north side of the Maumee river, and about a mile below where Fort Meigs was afterwerd built, upon the opposite side. They had expected admittance into the fort, but Colonel Campbell, the com- mander, directed the gates to be kept fast. Had the Indians been
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admitted, nothing would have prevented Wayne from storming the fort. So complete was the discomfiture and sudden the dispersion of the Indians, that General Barbee, with the second line of our army, which was three or four hundred yards behind us, never got into the engagement. As for me, I fired but twice. I could have got another shot, but one of our men, Frank Smith by name, raised up between me and my object, just as I was about to fire, and had a narrow escape of it. Carmack and Jackson, two of my Bourbon county neighbors, were alongside of me. A bullet struck Jackson, and he never again rose from the spot. I left him to the care of Carinack, and pursued the flying enemy. My Captain received two balls, one in the groin, but recovered after a lingering illness.
Our army returned to the Fallen Timbers, to attend to the killed and wounded, and encamped on the ground, placing sentinels, of which I was one, to guard against any surprise by the Indians, who, it was supposed, might rally. While thus engaged, I saw tivo of our men driving up before them, to that point of the camp where I stood, a Frenchman they had taken prisoner, disguised as an In- dian. I could not conceive what was meant by this, and hailed him, to which he replied by bowing repeatedly. He finally ac- costed me, in pretty good English, begging me not to shoot, as he was a prisoner. The men who brough him in, damned me, after- ward, for not shooting. I asked them if a prisoner was to be shot, why did they not shoot him themselves? It was, however, very well we spared his life, for we dispatched one of the prisoners, an Indian squaw, with a letter to his brother, at Detroit, which was the means of bringing him on, together with three persons who had been made captives by the Indians, in some of their, excursions, and who were given in exchange for this Frenchman.
During the battle and before the Indians had given way, I saw a man lying dead near me, who, I supposed, was one of my com- rades, and remarked, " There lies one of our brave fellows." "Look at his face," was the reply. I turned him over and found that his face was all over painted. In doing this, I noticed his breech-clout, which was stuck so thick with silver brooches that they touched each other, probably not less than one hundred and fifty. I tore it off him, but lost it afterward, my attention being engaged in loading and firing; and when I inquired for it subsequently, somebody else had picked it up, and would not surrender it.
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After my tour of guard was over, on returning to camp, I saw my Captain lying in the hands of the doctor, stretched out on a blanket. He grasped my hand and begged me not to forsake him, in case of a fresh attack, but to put him on a horse. I promised him that I would do so. While we were talking, General Wayne himself rode up, and noticing the sword lying by, inquired, "What officer is that?" He was told, and dismounting, gave his horse to be held by one of the men, and examining the wound, told Capt. Rollins that he was a live man yet, as the bullets, although they had shattered the hip and back-bone, had missed the vitals. He then ordered him to be taken, on a litter, to Camp Deposit, where we had left our baggage, pack-horses, etc., in charge of a party of the troops.
We then retraced our steps to Fort Defiance, and halted there a few days, when we marched up the Maumee river to the old Mau- mee town, at the junction of the St. Mary and St. Joseph. Here we commenced building a large fort, on which four or five weeks' labor was spent, and which was named after Wayne himself. The fort was built of the largest kind of oak logs, and as the draft- horses had been broke down in the campaign, the wagons on which the logs were loaded were hauled in by men-thirty to a wagon- with officers as drivers. The walls of the fort were double, the space being filled up with earth, afforded by a ditch dug outside, which was fourteen feet deep, and as much wide. All this work, or nearly all, was done by regulars, the volunteers being employed in escorting pack-horses and provisions from Fort Hamilton or Fort Recovery.
After Fort Wayne was completed, our term expired, and we left for home, and were read out of service at Cincinnati, on what is now the public landing, but which was then the ferry, opposite Licking.
Privations and Sufferings of the Early Settlers .- It is hardly possible for those who now reside in Cincinnati, in the enjoyment of the comfort and luxury which money can purchase, and the plenty which pours in by wagons, steamboats. railways, and canals, to realize the destitutions and privations of the first settlers, before they had got their farms cleared, and the cleared land under culti- vation and fence.
At that period the condition of the great thoroughfares of the west-of the route across the Allegheny mountains, especially-
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was such as to forbid the emigrants taking any articles but those of indispensable necessity; for a six horse road wagon, at a slow gait, could not carry more than what would now be considered, over a macadamized road, a load for two horses. When the pio- neer westward had reached Redstone or Wheeling, the difficulties of transportation were not much lessened. There were no wagon roads through the intermediate country, if the hostility of the im- placable savage had permitted traversing the route by land in safety; and the family boats which carried the settlers down were so encumbered with wagons, horses, cows, pigs, etc., as to have little room for anything else but a few articles of family house- keeping of the first necessity. On reaching their destination, cabins had to be erected, the land cleared and cultivated, and the crop gathered in, in the presence, as it were, of the relentless savage, who watched every opportunity of destroying the lives of the settlers, and breaking up the lodgments as fast as made. In the meantime, supplies of food, not yet raised on the improvement, had to be obtained in the woods from hunting, which, in most cases, was a constant exposure of life to Indian enemies.
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